During a discussion I had with several co-workers today while we attended a statewide curriculum meeting, the facilitator came to our table to look at what we wrote on the poster and gave us a thumbs-up sign.
I then told my co-workers that I had been scarred when I was in middle school by the very same gesture a teacher gave to me in the classroom, only to find out the gesture was empty and fake.
Here’s the story.
I was working on a poem analysis in my 7th grade English class when the teacher came to my desk and looked at my paper and told me (through my ASL interpreter) that I did a good job and she gave me the thumbs-up sign. I felt proud of my work and beamed at the praise from the teacher. Several days later, one of my close friends admitted to me that he had overheard the teacher tell someone else (I don’t remember if the conversation was to another teacher or to a student) that she had falsely given me praise because she felt sorry for me.
I was shocked, and from that point on, I never really trusted the platitudes that I was given by my hearing teachers in the mainstreamed school I was at. I just didn’t know what to believe and whether the teacher was sincere with her compliments (or even constructive criticism).
One of my hearing co-workers then shared her story about how in 4th grade, her music teacher told her to quiet down and that “your voice is too loud.” Embarrassed, that co-worker never sang with confidence in music class after that incident.
A deaf co-worker chimed in with their story about how in elementary school she entered an artwork contest hosted by a public television station and that her artwork won and was featured on the 10 p.m. telecast a few weeks later. The next day in class, her teacher announced to the class that she had won the contest and praised her for her creativity and another teacher walked into the classroom and the first teacher told her “guess who had their artwork featured on the TV evening news?” the second teacher pointed at my co-worker and said “I know it wasn’t you.” She was devastated and knew from that point on that she could not trust teachers to give her the confidence she needed.
Too often we say things without realizing the long-term ramifications on how they may make a child feel at that moment, and in many instances, the rest of their life. I never forgot what that teacher said to me in an empty gesture of trying to make me feel good. After that, I never viewed teacher praise as the same, and I resolved, no matter what, to work harder than ever before to raise my own expectations.
Students are not necessarily fragile, but students remember clearly things that people tell them, and they often carry that with them for the rest of their lives.
I know I did.
